It is 2021, globalization is advancing, and with it also the increasing use of foreign, mostly English-speakingterms in our everyday language.

Maybe it’s a particularly fashionable term, or we’re talking about the weekend or this lockdown then had us at home and online perhaps more than we should have been and exposed to an avalanche of news.

Et voila, did you notice the 5 Englishisms in the only 2 lines above? And the Frenchism at the beginning of this one? If you noticed it means that this article is for you and if you didn’t notice it, you can continue reading the article nonchalantly, you won’t notice anything! And yes, that Frenchness is also intended.

In many cases we use these foreign terms almost unconsciously, as if it were a trend, and probably some are really more immediate and concise in expressing a concept, but others we could definitely avoid.

ENGLISHISMS EASILY AVOIDED

ABSTRACT:ABSTRACT , SUMMARY, both perfectly usable terms without resorting to English.

COFFE-BREAK: PAUSA CAFFÈ, in Italian it is also more fluent and has a more relaxing sound!

FASHION: depending on the context, FASHION, TO FASHION, … isn’t Italian better?

MEETING: MEETING, absolutely preferable!

SPEECH: SPEECH, what’s wrong with the word speech?

TREND: TENDENCE, OF TENDENCE, let’s reverse the trend and use trend!

ENGLISHISMS THAT ARE HARD TO DO WITHOUT

BEAUTY CASE.: BEAUTY CASE FOR BEAUTY PRODUCTS, actually difficult to express it succinctly in Italian.

DERBY: MATCH BETWEEN TEAMS FROM THE SAME CITY, abbreviating in this case makes sense.

JET LAG.: TEMPORARY SICKNESS FROM REPENTINARY CHANGE IN TIME ZONE, English sitetize well.

SMOG : POLLUTION, the word smog is perhaps more incisive than ours, or perhaps we are just used to hearing it.

TRAILER : COMING SOON TO THE CINEMA, how do you translate that with a single word trailer? Simple, you can’t.

SELFIE : SELF-TAKE, alas, does anyone still use the word self-timer since the smartphone era has taken over common sense?

Sometimes incorporating foreign terms into one’s own language is partially acceptable, preserving one’s linguistic identity is important, and, finally, opening oneself — alongside one’s mother tongue — to true knowledge of a foreign language, not just a few terms, opens up vast boundaries for us. From a well-known quote, “Monolingualism is the illiteracy of the 21st century.“

Find a comprehensive and entertaining list of Englishisms in this article.